"The Green Inferno" (2013) d/ Eli Roth

In case you wandered out for a fresh box of Grins, Smiles, Giggles and Laughs at the outset of the seventies and got yourself lost in the process... for the next forty years, it's not classified information that director Umberto Lenzi is the primus inter pares of Italian cannibal movies, to which fellow director Ruggero Deodato also claims apostolic succession. Eli Roth, on the other hand, has shown unquestionable loyalty to the horror genre throughout his career in filmmaking, from directing Cabin Fever (2002) and Hostel (2005), to producing The Last Exorcism (2010) and Clown (2014), establishing himself as a prime purveyor of pernicious potency along the way,  so in my best estimation, it was only a matter of time before he put his own spin on the infamous sub-genre that Lenzi and Deodato popularized years earlier. Procrastinator extraordinaire that I,  no doubt, am, managed to get to a theater and see it at an eleven pm showing on one of its final area engagements. It went something like this...


"We are the CIT's so pity us, the kids are brats, the food is hideousssss..."
The collegiate idealist, Justine (Lorenza Izzo), despite some light ribbing from her drug-addled gal pal, Kaycee (Sky Ferreira),  gets mixed up with the campus' most outspoken social justice warriors, escaping the systemic patriarchal oppression of the United States for the lush tropical clime of the Amazon River basin, as led by the aloof Alejandro (Ariel Levy), who's every bit as shady as he is charismatic. The naive student, along with many of her equally clueless peers, believes she'll be sabotaging corporate greed via satellite feed through cellphones, but that's obviously not gonna go according to plans, as anyone who's seen the trailer can attest. Before too long, she finds herself at the business end of an assault rifle, and subsequently, rounded up by red-faced Indio fans of Moe Howard (his haircut, at least, I'm not sure if any of the Stooges ate human flesh...maybe Larry Fine?) and slapped into a bamboo cage, where she's forced to bear witness to her chunky token black pal Jonah (Aaron Burns) being dismembered alive at the hands of the cannibal tribe, whose colorfully cruel and cataracted elder especially savours eating his eyes, freshly plucked from the sockets. Yeah, bleeeech.


"You're smearing blood on a vegan...hello? Problematic! Stop triggering me!"
After a vaginal horning from the elder, who doubles as the tribal gynecologist, apparently,  proves Justine to be worthy of the white powder treatment, she's forced to juggle her homicidal thoughts of Alejandro, who'd used her as an expendable patsy while in cahoots with the very corporation he'd set out to shut down, and formulating a viable escape plan while her friends are systematically lifted from the bamboo prison, one by one, and slain and prepared for dinner before her very eyes. One chick is forced to discreetly evacuate her problematic bowels in the corner of the cage. Poo-poo humor, nice touch. When the prisoners are later fed what they believe to be pork in primitive bowls, one vegan lass is shocked to find her girlfriend's tattooed skin at the bottom of the bowl, after a fruitless escape attempt, no doubt. The horrified, brokenhearted blonde cannibal then slashes her own throat in a final protest. When the tribe mistakenly consumes the group's resident stoner, who's eaten a few ounces of weed beforehand, Justine and Daniel (Nicolas Martinez) are given a brief window of opportunity for dramatic jungle escape, while the zooted cannibals lie around,  play their Black Sabbath records, and think about ordering a pizza. What transpires afterwards, you'll have to see for yourselves.


'White Priviledge' in the Amazon: We'll cook most of you before eating you.
How many "Meatballs" (1979) references will I make before it's all over? Just all of them... The goopy effects, provided by KNB, are anatomically effective and brutally brilliant, as usual. Naturally, Inferno will have drawn innumerable comparisons with cult scene fiends to Cannibal Ferox (1980) and Cannibal Holocaust (1979) before all is said and done, and though it clearly tips a knowing hat to those films throughout its run time (some might say the only aspect it hasn't culled from its Italian predecessors was the rampant animal cruelty that ran through the entire sub-genre during its period of popularity, and that's not a bad thing, unless your last name happens to be Dahmer), I think it also stands on it's own merit as a clever modern take with ample wince-worthy acts of violence for the gorehounds. I like what the "Bear Jew" is doing, and I'd hope he continues to produce such genre movies of quality, as I'll be sure to see all of them along the way. He's got my vote, thus far. On the scale, three Wops for a choice chunk of anthropophaginian entertainment that you oughta catch for your own benefit. See it!


"I'm not appropriating your culture, so don't appropriate my clitoris, you Indio-chauvenist pigs!"

"Jason Goes to Hell:The Final Friday"(1993)d/Adam Marcus

After covering the eight previous films in the Friday the 13th series, tonight, we hit rock bottom like Paul of KISS's immortalized chick, who knows she oughta treat him good, yet never treats him like she should.Only a lot farther down than that.With the mushroom cloud of total fucking failure, as deposited into the atmosphere by Jason Takes Manhattan(1989) still hanging off the air five years later like a soggy Bukwas on a tanning bed of spent mushroom compost, New Line Cinema's supernatural re-imagining of Paramount's slasher king for yet another 'final' movie; a ham-fisted, boring segue into the horror nerd's nocturnal emission come true that would come from the studio a decade later in the form of Freddy vs. Jason, that won't really appeal to hardcore Jason fanatics(the iconic goalie-masked zombie is mostly unaccounted for here, even delivering a breviloquent bit o'uncharacteristic Jason dialogue, too, and the film is woefully deficient in empty-headed, sex-starved teenaged camp counselors, as well... what gives, Cunningham), and despite some skillful murders provided by the ever-stellar KNB troupe, doesn't offer much entertainment to the average genrephile either.I'm not knocking the producers for trying to steer the whole enervated mess into an overdue new direction, I'm questioning why nobody involved blew the whistle along the way, and said, out loud, "Dudes, this seriously sucks, everyone's gonna hate the fuck out of it.Let's start over...". Rivalling 'Manhattan' in suck-itude should be no easy task, but Marcus and Co. make it look effortless here, even serving up an embarrassing moment of hellish denouement geared towards eight year old wrasslin' fans involving that other iconic horror character with the bad complexion, corny wisecracks, foppish hat, and ugly sweater.

"Jumpin' Jeezus!This is some mellow hickory smoked BBQ sauce, I'll tell you THAT, Jack!"
After Jason Voorhees(Kane Hodder) unwittingly walks into an undercover F.B.I. sting in Crystal Lake where he's pumped full o' lead, then grenaded into pulpy smithereens(I guess the wire tap wasn't working, fellas?), his disembodied, black heart hypnotizes a black morgue attendant(Richard Gant) into taking a big nasty bite out of it, and thus, transferring Jason's evil essence into the soul brother, who takes it upon himself to murder his assistant(after he foolishly refers to Jason's pieces on the morgue table as “a faggoty, blown-up fuck.”) and two F.B.I. agents(one of which is Kane Hodder, in a cameo, minus the prosthetic retard-zombie head and hockey mask), before embarking on a journey to Crystal Lake, where he adds Alexis, Deborah, and Luke(they came camping here with the sole intent to fuck and do drugs "now that Jason's dead"...He's not dead, you fools, he's just gone black these days.) to his burgeoning list of victims with a scalpel, and, more spectacularly, shanking Debbie in the labonza with a tent spike, then ripping her in half, mid-tent sex, and stomping her boyfriend's head in, for good measure.Then, after smashing Josh's(Andrew Bloch) partner's dome in a car door, he kidnaps the deputy, straps him bare-assed to a living room table, lathers him up with shaving cream, shaves him down, then plants a passionate one on the helpless lawman's yap, earling some oily black slug down his throat for his troubles.I was already feeling queasy, having to watch the man-on-man shaving action, but thanks anyway, guys.Now, according to national tv celeb/bounty hunter/black cowboy, Creighton Duke(Steven Williams), Jason can only be truly killed by a blood relative, and it just so happens that his never-before mentioned half-sister Diana(Erin Gray, wtf are you doing here...), her daughter, Jessica(Kari Keegan), and her infant daughter, are all within walking distance of shaved cop-Jason, who can also be reborn into his original form through the same blood relative.What the fuck's with all this hocus pocus shit anyway?

This F.B.I. agent is through being Kane-n fodder for the system.
Eh, no matter.Josh/Jason hasn't been paying attention to it, either, or else he'd have possessed Diana instead of killing her and pinning it on her daughter Jessica's ex, Steven(John D. LeMay), who gets the skinny on the Jason mythos via some broken digits while jailed next to Duke.Diana's current beau, Robert(Steven Culp), is a smarmtastic reporter for American Casefiles, a show that happens to be exploiting the current Jason sitch for ratings, and he's surprised by an escaped Steven at the Voorhees house, as he's mapping out his latest exploitation stunt with Diana's stolen cadaver, an episode called "Secrets of the Voorhees House Revealed"(I'd tell you that the Necronomicon from the 'Evil Dead' series makes a cameo here, but you'll be snoring too loudly by this point in the film to notice, trust me).Josh/Jason breaks in and puckers up to Robert, his previous incarnation melting into a blecch-puddle afterwards, then attempts to transfer into Jessica, only to be thwarted at the last second by her persistent ex.The former couple rush to the diner where Jessica's friend, Vicki(Allison Smith), has been tending to the baby for her, but Robert/Jason makes the scene, whacking the gun-toting owners and BBQ skewering Vicki while he's at it.Meanwhile, Duke has Jessica's baby and an enchanted dagger, plus two vs. immortal homicidal mongoloids, waiting at the Voorhees' digs, where all sorts of The Hidden(1986)-inspired body switching takes place before Jason's heart becomes an embryonic demon that crawls up Diana's corpse's asshole(!), allowing Kane Hodder to finally clock six more quality minutes in his classic Jason getup, as he's reborn for the finale.Jessica manages to sink the magical dagger into Voorhees' chest, unleashing the souls of all the desperate actors who took Friday the 13th gigs to keep their electricity turned on, as some demonic prop-hands explode out of the earth to methodically pull the hulking fiend down to H-E-double hockey sticks.Walking off into the sunset, Steven, Jessica, and baby make three, but a dog shows up to dig Jason's goalie mask out of the dirt, only to have Freddy Krueger's razor-gloved hand appear and snatch it up, pulling it down into the abyss amidst his trademark corny laughter...

Sadly, reaching for that last white Power Ranger off of the Wal-Mart shelf on Christmas eve was the last mistake he ever made.
"Ayyyy-yo, Cunningham, conference in my office!", as that jukebox-beating rascal, Fonzie, used to say: Jason doesn't go to Hell, he sends the audience there, instead, ninety-one minutes' worth, by my calculations.It's not even the 'Final Friday' either, as the title also suggests, as that day probably won't arrive until people finally decide to stop spending dough at the theaters for this paint-by-numbers shit or somebody pops a cap in Ice Cube, one or the other.Jason X(2001) would follow, enraging many of the braindead mooks who were intent on seeing Freddy and Jason square off in their gimmicky 2003 feature, complete with Vegas pre-fight weigh-ins and press conferences.You'll have to stay tuned to see how either of those movies rate with me.I'll get around to them eventually, I'm sure.As for this particular turd...fucking GOOSE EGGS, baby.

"Pffffffffffffftttttt...", went the Cheez-Whiz can, finally empty at last.

"Piranha 3D"(2010)d/Alexandre Aja

As you might be able to guess, tonight's review is a good time: gallons of geysering stage blood, ample prosthetic Nicotero piranha bites, and bobbling d cup bikini dumplings as far as the eye can see,served up salaciously by genre director, Alexandre Aja, the man responsible for Haute Tension(2003) and the Hills Have Eyes remake; a veritable seven course meal of mayhem for any self-respecting horror fanatic to wrap his or her 3D glasses around.Despite all the dementedly delectable factors in place here, I still expected a lot more from Aja at this stage of the game, and I somehow managed to come away from this remake feeling kinda flat and disappointed.Judging by the overwhelming positivity towards this feature on the webs, and upcoming sequel from Dimension Pictures, my gut and I might just be alone on this one over here... still, I gotta call 'em like I see 'em.

"Motorboat goes in the lake...prehistoric piranhas in the lake... you go in the motorboat...farewell and adieu, to you fair Spanish ladieeeeees..."
A small earthquake in Arizona causes a split in the lake bottom underneath Lake Victoria, which frees up multitudes of angry prehistoric ancestors to modern day piranhas that have been evolving the past two million years, undetected in an underground cavern below.Feeling more than a little peckish after their prolonged nap, they make a quick snack out of fisherman Matt Boyd(Richard Dreyfuss) after the whirlpool pulls him into the water.With an impending spring break drawing twenty thousand partying half-naked teenagers to the small surrounding community, there'll be no shortage of fish food, either.Enter Jake(Steven R. McQueen),a likeable kid who's trying to juggle babysitting his kid brother and sister, reunite with former flame, Kelly(Jessica Szohr), and scout locations for Wild, Wild Girls producer Derrick Jones(Jerry O'Connell)and his travelling entourage of nude water nymphs, while keeping the peace with his mother, Julie(Elisabeth Shue), who also happens to be the town sheriff.While Jake parties it up on the Barracuda, Derrick's boat, with Kelly, Danni, and Crystal, and his two young siblings unwittingly strand themselves on a sandbar, his mother inspects the newly formed fissure with a team of seismologists who end up a scuba tank Smörgåsbord for the flesh-hungry fish.Novak, the lone survivor, and Julie rush one of the specimens to Mr. Goodman(Christopher Lloyd),a marine biologist-turned-pet store owner, who identifies the uniquely dentified predators from a fossil and warns of the bloodbath of epic proportions that just might ensue, if we're lucky enough.

"Aren't you Jim from 'Taxi'?"
Before too long, tits and asses meet toothy fishes, and all Hell breaks loose on the lake.A wet t-shirt contest(hosted by none other than Eli Roth)on a floating stage is interrupted by thousands of piranhas,and despite the best rescue efforts of Julie's deputies, the water soon turns blood red and is littered with random, floating body parts.The Barracuda's glass bottom(used for some really choice underwater shots of aqua-lesbianism earlier in the day)smashes on the rocks after Jake rescues his siblings from the tiny island,and Derrick finds himself eaten from the waist down(one piranha burps his dick out only to have another one partially devour it!).His lens candy also ends up on the menu, with disembodied silicone tit-bags floating to the lake bottom(!!).The sheriff and Novak arrive via motorboat to rescue the remaining survivors while a rope-tied Jake uses flares and propane tanks on the sinking yacht to eradicate the majority of piranhas Bradford Dillman-style.Goodman interrupts the premature celebration to inform Julie that the fish she brought him earlier was merely a juvenile.Before anyone can question the adults whereabouts out loud,a huge piranha jumps out of the water, knocking Novak off the boat.Roll credits.

Derrick Jones(Jerry O'Connell)gets stripped to his bones.
Among the impressive ensemble cast that includes Dreyfuss(parodying his character in Jaws, which the original movie ripped off), Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Jerry O'Connell, are porn queens Gianna Michaels, Ashlynn Brooke, and Riley Steele, on board to be ravaged by cgi fish instead of the usual(dicks).As much as I hate cgi anything, some of it doesn't look bad here, and KNB once again goes above and beyond for inventive splatter effects as to be expected.The cinematography is pretty lush for a b-movie remake of a b-movie, though choppy editing allows a few major characters to vanish from the storyline without an explanation for anybody who might have been paying attention to such things.Still, this is enjoyable, emptyheaded fun that doesn't take itself very seriously, and you'll probably like it, as I did.With all the factors in place the way they are here, it'd be hard for anyone to foul it up to the point of mediocrity, the way Aja almost does.Two big ones on the scale.

A hapless bimbo's grill gets swum out of like a ceramic aquarium decoration.

"Vampires"(1998)d/John Carpenter

I didn't think we'd ever get to March here at the Wop, between a week of brutal flu symptoms leaving me sweating and shivering in bed like Regan MacNeil in need of a cruci-fix, and half-assed local DSL connections effectively keeping me off the interwebs when I was coherent enough to get outta bed.Well, that's all behind us now, kiddies.Tonight,we'll take a look at the movie that genre god John Carpenter followed his ill-advised reload of Escape From New York with, already treading dangerously upon the waters of mediocrity with such non-impact fare as Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Village of the Damned under his recent belt at the time.Carpenter, as you'll already know, had a streak of amazing movies not many directors have ever gotten close to, from around 1976 to 1987 or so.When he finally lost his grip on success, his descent from the top wasn't as instant or constant as one might think, as tonight's review should illustrate.He helmed some pretty uninspired pictures during his dry spell, but Vampires wasn't one of them.
Based upon the 1990 John Steakley novel of the same name,Carpenter's Vampires offers some witty dialogue, inventive grue, and much needed new life breathed into the all too familiar(by now,dontcha think?) vampire legend.Two crappy unrelated direct-to-video sequels not withstanding,I have no complaints at all here.My old man, a guy with one of the healthiest fears of fanged bloodsuckers I've ever seen in my life(here's a guy who'll start to backpeddle and shout for help if I pretend to lunge towards his neck), actually took this one in with me at the theater and volunteered for rewatches when I snagged the dvd.Now, that's saying something.If only Ghosts of Mars didn't follow.If only.

Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith) plants an inspired hickey.
Somewhere in a New Mexico dustbowl,Jack Crow(James Woods)and his merry band of vampire slayers have just eradicated a nest of "goons", or entry level vampires, from an abandoned farmhouse.While the team parties it up at a nearby motel that night, Crow ponders the missing piece to the sunlight-deprived, undead puzzle; there was no master vampire at the nest as per usual.That's because the master of this vanquished nest just happens to be Jan Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith), only the pioneer proponent of blood drinking, unwittingly unleashed upon Earth's inhabitants by the Catholic Church in a botched exorcism ritual centuries earlier.Valek crashes the slayer party that night, and at full lunar-powered strength, he effortlessly lays waste to vampire hunters, whores, and lawmen with equal,blood-soaked aplomb, leaving only Crow, Montoya(Daniel Baldwin), and a thigh-siphoned prostitute named Katrina(Sheryl Lee) alive in his vengeful wake.The decimated team scrambles to regroup, with Crow meeting with Cardinal Alba(Maximillian Schell, slightly less ridiculous here than his turn in "The Black Hole"), while Montoya holes up with the hooker who's now psychically linked to Valek as vampirism begins to take hold of her with each passing hour.Gripped in terror, she helplessly watches as he and a group of seven masters brutally slaughter priests and monks alike in search of the famed Berziers Cross, rumored to hold the power to allow vampires to walk unaffected during daylight hours.Yeah,you're probably gonna wanna stop him before he gets a hold of that one, guys.

I used to think I was pretty good at crashing parties...
Crow is paired up with a new priest(seeing as how Valek forced the last one to shotgun his own brains all over the motel room ceiling),Father Guiteau(Tim Guinee), who he indoctrinates as a slayer by wisecracking, punking him out, and kicking him up his ass on the side of the road a little bit.Bullying God's bullies always made perfect sense to me, I dunno.Montoya, on the other hand, is having a rougher time of it with the infected hussy, now having to conceal the bite he's gotten himself in the midst of a spirited melee with his new she-pal.This all culminates in a knock down, drag out showdown in a Spanish mission where we discover the Cardinal(ooh, you bastard!) is in cahoots with the vampire, using the Berziers Cross and the blood of a crusader(a captured Crow) to complete the ritual that would allow Valek to venture out in the sunlight in exchange for eternal life.Montoya gets himself re-bitten by a fully-transformed Katrina, while Guiteau is hemmed in at an abandoned bar, realizing that this game's players are jumping sides faster than you could croon "Someone to care for...to be there for...I have-James Woods" to the tune of "You Two" off the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack.Will Valek finally be able to update his Bauhaus video extra wardrobe on a daytime High Street shopping spree?Will Montoya run out of extremely painful and hot things to cauterize his vampire bites on?Will Father Guiteau rescue Crow from his current tight spot,and will Crow kick his priestly ass for his troubles afterwards?Snag a copy and find out for yourselves,kiddies!

A Swiffer prolly shoulda been among the nifty doodads in Crow's(James Woods) armoured vehicle.Just sayin'.
Interesting usage of light filters, classic Carpenter-styled shot framing, heaps of inventive gore ladled on by the KNB masters,and some good performances throughout by a solid cast headed by Woods, who fits pretty naturally here as a master vampire slayer, believe it or not, and Griffith, whose fanged turn is adequate if not a little cliched in design, and a decent soundtrack make for an entertaining and original comic book-esque good n' evil sparring match that oughta satisfy most genre fans(that don't require sparkles or teen angst with their bloodlust).Just steer clear of Ghosts of Mars, whatever you do.Three biggies.

You've got some miserable looking sunflowers coming up out front...